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Electoral Reform | Educational Reform

Electoral Reform

The extraordinary 2000 U.S. Presidential election, with its extended, partisan vote count, recount, and certification process in Florida, made U.S. citizens, and the world community, aware of the fallibilities of our current electoral system. Most Americans believed in "one person – one vote" but, through this election, learned that all votes are not equal – whether due to civil rights violations, inadequate ballots or counting machines, the Electoral College system, or political manipulation or interpretation of results.

Many organizations and groups have undertaken efforts to ensure that future elections are not subject to the vagaries of chads, dimpled ballots, missing voting registrations, and other activities that disenfranchise groups or individuals. We philosophically support many of these efforts.

You can find the following on our site:

• Read about the work of the ACLU Foundation of Florida, to which we committed $300,000, through our Political Reform and Global Theme Grants.
  

You can also visit the following sites to learn more about specific electoral reform activities by leading nonprofit advocacy organizations:

• League of Women Voters – The Election Process: http://www.lwv.org/where/promoting/election.html
  
• Center for Voting and Democracy – Instant RunOff Voting: http://www.fairvote.org/irv/index.html
  
  

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Educational Reform

An educated populace is critical to an effective democracy. International research results that demonstrate that U.S. students are not keeping pace with the academic accomplishments of students in other countries, and the great disparity in the performance of students across the U.S., have led us to view educational reform as a necessity.

Due to the Foundation's other priorities, we are not actively engaged in this area, either through advocacy or grants. Our only activity has been that we made a $250,000 investment in a commercial educational reform company, LearnNow, Inc., in April 2001. This represented our primary effort in the educational reform arena. Subsequent to that investment, Edison Schools, Inc., another commercial entity, acquired LearnNow, Inc. The Foundation chose to liquidate its stock in Edison Schools, Inc. as soon as regulations allowed.

You can find the following on our site:

• Read about our initial investment in LearnNow, Inc.
  

You may also want to visit the following sites if you are interested in learning more about educational reform initiatives:

• National Center on Education and the Economy: www.ncee.org
  
• U.S. Department of Education's Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program: www.ed.gov/programs/compreform/index.html